White House Admits It Kept On Staffers With Drug Past

Twenty-one employees were allowed to continue working at the Clinton White House, despite FBI background checks indicating that they had used drugs within the year before being hired, government officials confirmed Monday.

The White House would not provide job descriptions for the 21 people, but Press Secretary Mike McCurry said none was among the 130 staff members in the top three job categories--assistant to the president, deputy assistant to the president and special assistant to the president.

The White House employs about 1,700 workers in positions ranging from senior presidential advisors to cooks and messengers.

Only nine of the 21 employees still work at the White House, McCurry said, a reduction that he attributed to normal staff attrition. As a precaution urged by the Secret Service, the employees were subjected to intermittent drug testing beginning in May 1994, and none has tested positive for drug use since then, McCurry said.

The fact that the 21 employees were undergoing special testing because of concerns about “recent drug use” first came to light in March 1995, during testimony by White House administrative director Patsy Thomasson before a Senate Appropriations subcommittee.

The White House set up a special program of intermittent drug testing for the 21, in addition to the random drug testing required of all White House employees, McCurry noted. Secret Service officials had insisted on the testing, fearing that recent drug use by White House employees might pose a security problem.

On Monday, Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.), the subcommittee chairman, rekindled the issue, speculating that it might explain why the Clinton White House obtained hundreds of FBI background summaries on White House employees and pass-holders who were no longer in the government.

White House officials have contended that because of a bureaucratic blunder, the personnel security office improperly obtained the background summaries, whose subjects included some prominent Republicans. The matter now is under investigation by independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr and Senate and House committees.

But Shelby noted that the background summaries would have disclosed whether there had been any indications of drug use by employees when Republicans controlled the White House. That would have been useful to an administration seeking to retain employees who have drug problems.

Referring to the special drug testing program, Shelby said the Clinton administration had gone to “great lengths to allow a few former drug users” to work in the White House.

Members of the White House counsel’s office in the Reagan and Bush administrations contended that employees would not have been retained if their background checks had shown recent drug use. “Recent” drug use is defined as occurring within a year of the background investigation.

“They would not have been cleared” for employment, said Richard Hauser, deputy White House counsel during the Reagan administration. “It was disqualifying,” but “I don’t think it was an issue that we confronted very often.”

Clinton administration officials had said early on in Clinton’s tenure that they had decided to no longer make previous drug use a flat disqualification for federal appointments.

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In a related development, the Senate Judiciary Committee will vote today on whether to authorize its chairman, Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), to subpoena for testimony Anthony Marceca, who requested the FBI files while temporarily assigned to the White House.

Marceca, whose lawyer said he would invoke his 5th Amendment privilege against self-incrimination in backing out of a previous voluntary appearance before the panel, had already testified before a House panel and a federal grand jury. Marceca is a civilian investigator for the Army who has also been a Democratic political operative.

The issue of whether to grant Marceca immunity, despite concerns by Starr that it could hamper his investigation, has not yet been discussed, a spokeswoman for the Senate committee said.

Times staff writer Paul Richter contributed to this story.